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Devs Explained the Half-Life: Alyx Finale (Topic)

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Devs Explained the Half-Life: Alyx Finale

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A month after the release of Half-Life: Alyx, I think we can talk about its ending. The final of Half Life: Alyx completely revolutionized the way we think about the game as a prequel. Considering Alyx just a prequel that does not move the main story forward, it turns out that it does not just do the opposite, but turns our idea of Half-Life 2 itself over and over. from the game writers to shed some light.

Everything new is forgotten old

It's safe to say that we shouldn't be wondering if Half Life 3 is worth waiting for or not. Now we just have no doubts that the game, in whatever form it may be, will be released.

"The ending suggests a certain direction that we're all very happy to follow, but there is no specific 300-page guide on how the game will develop," said Valve writer Jay Pinkerton. Let's talk about the ending of Half-Life: Alyx to understand the point.

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Initially, the Alliance kidnaps our father, and Alex is going to save him. It seems that this is the main essence of the game. At the same time, the stakes seem low to us, since we know that Eli will die at the end of the second episode, and before that he will be alive and well. And to your surprise, you save him pretty quickly. Further, it turns out that while Eli was in captivity, he learned about a powerful weapon that will help cope with the Alliance. They are most afraid of this, and they know for sure that with the help of this weapon they can lose control of City 17.

Alix's mission is now to find and possibly use this weapon. But she learns that it may not be a thing at all, but a person - Gordon Freeman. If Alix can get to the man who became legend after the events of Black Mesa, only to disappear immediately afterwards, they may have a chance to retake the planet from the Alliance.

As a result, we again have a rescue mission, only now with a completely different goal - to find Gordon Freeman. But as soon as Alix finds her target, it turns out that it was not Gordon Freeman, but G-man.

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He says that in exchange for the path done by Alix, thanks to which he was able to free himself from captivity, he will offer her his services in exchange. According to the mysterious recruiter, many assume that fate cannot be changed, but his employers do not think so and send him to adjust the time using small impulses.

Alix immediately asks that the Alliance leave Earth, to which he replies that it is too difficult even for his employers. But in exchange for that, G-man can give her what she wants, but just doesn't know about it yet.

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And he shows the girl the ending of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, where Alix cries over Eli's body.

G-man invites her to save her father and Alyx agrees impulsively, killing the adviser before he stings Eli. G-man then reports that she has shown potential that confirms her value to his employers, and the past employee [Freeman] did not live up to expectations or simply did not want to. Afterwards, he congratulates Alix and hides, locking her in the space he held Gordon in. And the information appears on the screen:

  • Object: Alix Vance
  • Status: Hired
  • Job Waiting

The credits begin, and after that we move to the end of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 in Gordon's body.

We are awakened by a living Eli, who shouts that the G-man took Alix and she disappeared. He curses him, saying, "Son of a bitch, I'll show him the unintended consequences." He gives Gordon a pry bar, saying they still have a lot of work to do. All the while, the G-Man has been watching this from afar.

“The problem was how to get the game to end? How do we deal with the prequel problem without feeling like it was like a hermetically sealed story in the world of Half-Life? " - Says screenwriter Sean Wanaman.

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According to Pinkerton, they have resorted to the "God in a box" tactic, when, when freeing him from captivity, he thanks you for it in a specific way.

And here we begin to delve into the secret of the philosophy of Half-Life. Did it really happen? Or did they create a new alternate reality?

“We have an answer, we assure you, but we don't necessarily want to give it now,” Pinkerton says.

"Now the last place the story ends is not something that happened decades ago, it's something fresh in everyone's mind, along with questions about what this all means for the rest of the game," adds a third writer Eric Wolpo.

Anyway, it all comes down to G-man.

Who is G-man and what does he want?

Half-Life: Alyx has done a great writing job without revealing details of who G-Man is or what he wants. He's something that the franchise constantly teased us with, but never explained. There is an internal logic of what he can and cannot do in this world, but the truth is that this logic can be hidden from players on purpose.

“It's more important for us to be able to build rules for himself based on ideas, so we can't prescribe them in advance,” Pinkerton explained. “This is what I think is very important. And we do not want to deprive people of the joy of intrigue. But there is a fine line between intriguing and not developing this line in any way. ”

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Wolpo noted that shedding light on G-Man's identity and working on the remaining mysteries is definitely where the series should go. But to keep Half-Life going, they need to expand their focus a bit while staying on track. Moreover, given that the Alliance does not pose such a great threat. This means the G-Man and his mysterious bosses may play a more important role in the story.

“If you remember Episode 2, the heroes closed the portals. So in fact what is left of the Alliance on Earth is all that is left. ”

Since there are no more portals, the Alliance is stuck here with us just as we were stuck here with them. They cannot escape, but no reinforcements will come. So this story may end sooner than fans expected.

Who is G-Man and who he works for - this could provide a very different focus for future Half-Life games. The only question that remains is whether Valve themselves know who he is and what his motives are.

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However, the writers did not answer this question to reporters from Polygon.

“Who he is may not matter, as his influence on history is always felt through what he does. Mystery is part of the experience, and explanation can destroy its charm. ”

"Everything in him is alien, and as a person, I think that unnecessary explanations would simply deprive such a character of charm if I suddenly had his biography, and I knew where he lived, or what he wore when he received his mail. It just doesn't interest me, ”says Woolpo.

What can we expect?

Given how Alix turned everything upside down, it's hard to even imagine, because absolutely no one could predict such a development of events. The game freezes one character, and returns the other to us, and it seems that Eli's transfer of his mount to Gordon is clearly symbolic, as a symbol of the fact that Valv is back in business, and that Gordon is returning again. In parallel, transferring everything not only to Freeman's hands, but also to the player himself.

There are many routes a team of writers can take and it seems that they themselves do not yet fully know their path. We'd better ask when we should expect Half-Life 3, because now we know for sure what it will be.

The Topic of Article: Devs Explained the Half-Life: Alyx Finale.
Author: Jake Pinkman


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